Hi Is there any way of managing the plugins installed in Jenkins other than through the GUI interface?
Ideally I would like to be able to define a list of plugins (names, URLs, version numbers) in a text file, which would be read by Jenkins and ensure that the correct plugins are installed (and warn/error of any discrepancies or extraneous plugins). Ideally, something similar to a `pom.xml`, or node's `package.json`, or python's `requirements.txt`. I'd be happy with such a tool if it were a standalone executable, or another Jenkins plugin, or a feature of some Config Management tool (e.g. Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Salt). I know that plugins can be installed by copying .hpi/.jpi files to ~jenkins/plugins/. This works for backing up, mostly, but is far from ideal. Problems I have with this: * plugin bloat: no record of when/why a plugin was installed or if it should be removed; over time a large number of unused plugins acccumulate * version drift: no record of when/why a plugin was updated, or why a particular version was changed; in most cases you just use the most up to date version from when you installed the plugin, and upgrading in the future is difficult to track * custom plugins: if I've recompiled a .hpi file for a fork of a plugin I've made, it's tough to tell the difference between my version and the version in the update-center I'm a big fan of infrastructure-as-code. Particularly, I like being able to see a history of infrastructure changes in a source controlled repository. Source control of Jenkins plugins would allow * informative commit messages * code review for why plugins are being added * easier rollbacks to previous good states when upgrading Being able to deploy a Jenkins master from configuration would provide a bunch of other benefits: * easier to deploy new Jenkins masters (for testing, disaster recovery, complex multi-master configurations) * indicate the source of the plugin (i.e. the update-center, a github repo, or an internal artifact manager) * indicate the correct version to use Is there any existing tool or framework that would provide all of this? Or will I have to roll my own? Thanks! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Jenkins Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-users/64dbe471-e394-4eab-b0fc-8e2e9afbbf23%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
